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He was born Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderahman Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Abdel Karim El Mahdi in Sudan, in Northern Africa, but spent most of his life in Britain where he attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA). His uncle on his mother's side is actor Malcolm McDowell; another uncle, on his father's side, was twice the prime minister of Sudan.

When he began acting, he adopted a shortened version of his name, Siddig El Fadil. He then changed his acting credit to Alexander Siddig at the start of the fourth season of Deep Space Nine, reportedly because people had difficulty pronouncing his birth name. According to Siddig, the name "Alexander" was chosen "out of a hat". (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) His directorial credit remained as El Fadil for one DS9 episode he directed: "Business as Usual".

A union between Siddig and his Deep Space Nine co-star Nana Visitor produced a son, Django El Tahir El Siddig. Visitor's pregnancy was covered up on-screen by having the unborn child of the married Keiko O'Brien (played by Rosalind Chao) transplanted to the womb of Visitor's character, the unmarried Kira Nerys. Django was born on 16 September 1996, during production on the DS9 episode "Let He Who Is Without Sin...". Siddig and Visitor were married on 14 June 1997. The two divorced in 2001, two years after Deep Space Nine left the airwaves.

Siddig first appeared to television audiences as Prince Feisal in the 1990 made-for-TV sequel to Lawrence of Arabia entitled A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia. When auditions came for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1992, Siddig was originally considered for the role of Benjamin Sisko, but was reportedly deemed too young for the role. [X]wbm In 2009, Siddig gave an interview in which he remarked that he is mainly recognized for his role on Deep Space Nine and that he once had to wait for three hours in an airport for the FBI to arrive, just so they could have his autograph. [2]

Siddig continues to perform for television on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2003 he guest starred in an episode of the popular BBC spy drama series Spooks (screened as MI5 in the United States). In 2005, he lent his voice to the "Patriot Games" episode of Family Guy, an animated series created by Trek fan Seth MacFarlane. Also in 2005, he appeared in a major role in an episode of the British detective series Agatha Christie's Poirot entitled "Cards on the Table". In 2006 he starred in the BBC television movie Hannibal, playing the title character (opposite Ben Cross).

In September 2009, Siddig appeared in the BBC forensic crime drama Waking the Dead as Dr Mohammed, a psychiatrist at a high security psychiatric hospital who is hiding a dark secret. In April 2010, it was announced that Siddig had joined the cast of the British science fiction series Primeval[3] for series 4 and 5. On this show, he played Phillip Burton, a charismatic scientist and technology tycoon who is a private contractor put in charge of running the Governments "Anomaly Research Centre" but is secretly using the technology developed for his own purposes.

Siddig played the recurring role of Al-Rahim in the first season of the BBC/Starz fantasy-adventure drama Da Vinci's Demons. In 2013, he potrayed King Minos on the BBC series Atlantis, which aired in the U.K. and Canada and premiered on BBC America in November. He will play Prince Doran Martell in the fifth season of Game of Thrones. [4]

Siddig has worked extensively in major motion pictures since production on Deep Space Nine came to an end in 1999. In 2000, he appeared as an ill-fated mountain climber in Vertical Limit. Two years later, he had a role in the fantasy action film Reign of Fire, alongside Trek guest star Alice Krige (the two did not share any scenes together).

Siddig co-starred in two major feature films in 2005: Ridley Scott's epic Kingdom of Heaven and Stephen Gaghan's highly-acclaimed Syriana. His performance as reformist Arabian Prince Nasir Al-Subaai in the latter film garnered Siddig much praise and even early talks of a possible Academy Award nomination. [5][6][7][8]Syriana also featured fellow Trek performers Christopher Plummer, Robert Foxworth, and David Clennon.

In 2006, Siddig appeared as the angel Gabriel in the Biblical drama The Nativity Story. He followed this with roles in the 2007 war epic The Last Legion, set during the last days of the Roman Empire, and the 2007 French drama, Un Homme Perdu (A Lost Man). He then played Prime Minister John Hatcher in the 2008 futuristic action thriller Doomsday, co-starring with his uncle, Malcolm McDowell.

Siddig starred in a 2009 film entitled Cairo Time, which shot on location in Cairo, Egypt. In the film, Siddig plays a retired Egyptian police officer sent to pick up his friend's wife, only to begin an affair with her. [9] The following year, Siddig was seen in the blockbuster action/fantasy film Clash of the Titans (in which he played Hermes) and in 4.3.2.1, an independent film that was written, produced and co-directed by Star Trek Into Darkness actor Noel Clarke. Siddig also co-starred in director Julian Schnabel's 2010 drama Miral, playing the father of the title character, a young woman who witnesses Hind Husseini's efforts to establish an orphanage in 1948 Jerusalem.

More recently, Siddig was the star on the Canadian thriller Inescapable and appeared in the comic drama May in the Summer. He can currently be seen in The Fifth Estate, a dramatic thriller about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, played in the film by Star Trek Into Darkness actor Benedict Cumberbatch.

On stage, Siddig appeared with Kim Cattrall in a production of the play Whose Life Is It Anyway in 2005. It was as a result of this pairing that Siddig and Cattrall, both alumni of the LAMDA, began dating soon afterwards. In 2008, Siddig lent his voice to two Doctor Who audio dramas, making him one of few people to be involved in both Star Trek and Doctor Who productions.